The Null Space
by IncendioVerum
Summary: As the dark waters continued to swirl below her, Maura Isles had an unexpected epiphany. Unfortunately, it was too little, and way too late. As the hours passed and the weight of loss began to settle upon her, it became painfully clear that Jane Rizzoli had taken both of their hearts with her down to the murky depths of Boston Harbor, and the M.E. would never be the same.
1. Chapter 1

**The Null Space**

**By IncendioVerum**

**Summary: As the dark waters continued to swirl below her, Maura Isles had an unexpected epiphany. Unfortunately, it was too little, and way too late. As the hours passed and the weight of loss began to settle upon her, it became painfully clear that Jane Rizzoli had taken both of their hearts with her down to the murky depths of Boston Harbor, and the M.E. would never be the same. [Rizzles]**

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters you recognize here because they already belong to TNT, Warner Bros, Rizzoli &amp; Isles, Tess Gerritsen and other people much cooler and prettier than me, lucky them. If you sue me, I have nothing but a ton of grad school student loans to share, a 15 year old SUV and a few Xena collectibles. I get nothing but good vibes from exercising my creative writing skills in this way. This is a work of fiction, though certain places and entities are obviously based on real life. I promise to put your peeps back on the shelf after I'm done playing with them.**

**Rating: According to the guidelines, this story feels like a strong T with M moments, depending on your interpretation. Chapters with notable M content will be labelled as such.**

**Spoiler alert: Set during / post R&amp;I season 5 episode 12 so spoilers for the entire series pretty much, though for the purposes of this fic I will tone down the implied suitability of Jack as a functional partner for Maura compared to the canon in this last episode and pretend that Maura doesn't meet his daughter or have that disastrous attempt at communing with tweens in general. **

**AN: The Inspiration for this story comes from the last scene in the summer season 5 cliffhanger episode. If you haven't seen it, go watch it and then come back. Back? Great, here we go. As Maura is looking down at the water, you can see the foam around the two impact points from Paul and Jane somewhat naturally form a heart outline in the water. I was struck by the visual analogy; that Jane had figuratively taken Maura's heart down with her when she went under, and it was at that moment that Maura (finally) realized just how entwined her life was with Jane's life, and how heavy the weight of that knowledge is as the next few events unfold. Yes, there be angst ahead. I'm heading in a #rizzles direction, for those of you who need to know this ahead of time, though Jack needs to be addressed in a manner that makes sense to the story arc. Note original title was Hearts on the Water, but there seems to be a similarly titled fic floating around recently so I decided to change it to something more Maura-esque and erm... geeky. Forgive the math analogies.**

**AN2: Yes, I do tend to write longer descriptive sentences. No I won't apologize for that. ;) I encourage you to read slowly and really savor the description to its fullest. Taste the words, if you will.**

Without further ado:

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**Chapter 1: In which Maura misplaces Jane**

The energy around the deserted bridge clicked over from potential to kinetic as the pathologist witnessed the towheaded fade of the county prosecutor unexpectedly lurch and duck, accompanied by an unintelligible bark from the detective.

_Jane? _Maura blinked, her eyebrows furrowing in concern. A hard splash soon followed, sharp against the evening quietness.

"Jane." _What's happening? _ Alarmed, The M.E. forced her body into motion, stepping around the cars. Less than a second later a perpetually unruly ponytail jerked, tossed and then descended beyond her sightline.

Hours later, when the brass demanded her full statement despite her obvious grief, she wouldn't even remember the words that passed her lips in the moments after she watched the distinctively wild hair dip below the balustrade support on the bridge and a subsequently delayed splash hit her ears.

"_Jane!_" Reality set in and suddenly Doctor Maura Isles realized why her entire world had just dropped out from beneath her, literally. Her feet propelled her quickly onto the walkway as she rushed forward around the metal structures between her and where the pair had last been standing.

"Jay-?" The absence of both parties at eye level caused her breath to catch, and she immediately looked down into the dark channel underneath. The M.E.'s brain fairly exploded with thoughts of gravity, displacement and time and _Nine point eight meters per second per second times twenty seven, no forty seven feet, or more…oh Jane no!_ Horrified, she gripped the railing for dear life, alert eyes scanning the muddied waters critically for any movement. Two intersecting patterns of displacement in the water stuck out under the shadows of the rusty bridge, the recent disturbance causing a distinctive froth on the waves but there was no other sign of life beneath the surface.

"JANE!" She screamed; the panicked cry ripped from her throat by an otherworldly force that was every emotion unleashed all at once from the petite medical examiner. She watched, transfixed, as the sea-foam floated into an obscene semblance of a stylized heart, tracking the impact point of the despondent prosecutor and the valiant detective who had so bravely stepped out on that ledge to plead her case and save the heartbroken man from himself.

"JAAAAAANE!" Her desperate shriek tore through the night air but was met with an eerie silence. "Where are you…" she pled, desperately searching the dark currents for any type of movement, her ears on fire straining to hear any indication of splashing, gasping, struggling. "JANE. ANSWER ME. Are you alright?" After long seconds of hearing nothing but the rhythmic lapping of waves, it struck the M.E. that she needed to get help here right now. "Oh God, oh God, oh God. Please be okay…" She mumbled absently, tearing into her jacket pocket for her cel phone. "JANE, HANG ON!" Maura bellowed.

The M.E.'s mind became deluged with information about anoxia, hypoxia, water temperature, barotrauma, tidal timetables, currents, shipping lanes, hospital routes and time. Not enough time. She was losing time. Jane was running out of time. A rising dread began to emerge from her intestines as she felt more seconds slip by waiting for her phone to find enough signal to connect.

She glanced down again, but the frothy heart shape on the water had already begun to dissipate, absorbed back into the gentle ripples of the outgoing tide. "Jane..." she breathed, as two salty droplets escaped from her eyes and trickled down the planes of flushed cheeks. "Jane please…. please come back up." She pleaded to the universe.

It was at that moment Maura Isles had an epiphany. Not the pretty sort in which the heavens opened and bright lights abounded, accompanied by an ethereal chorus and waves of happiness overflowing everywhere. This was the quiet sort. The damning sort. The sort that felt like a bottle of the rarest, most precious wine had been thrown into her unprotected chest… glass silently shattering, stabbing her heart muscle straight through as a thousand tiny shards sliced into her flesh, the alcohol burning every cell it came in contact with as the dark red hues of absolute truth dripped out, staining her clothes, her skin, her soul.

This wasn't just Jane, sinking in the dark somewhere below. This was her Jane. The person Maura _loved_, above all other people. _Her _Jane, who was the only person in Maura's entire life who dared to push past the icy Queen of the Dead persona she had perfected to keep everyone out over the years. This unconventional, blue-collar, bull-headed and incredibly complex person had come into her life and completely blown through her personal walls like they were paper with her patented combination of rakish charm, teasing satire and her gentle, scarred hands.

This was her trusted Jane, who was the only person allowed to touch Maura when she was upset, the only person she had _ever_ truly bared all of herself to emotionally. Jane had been the only one she had trusted enough to share _all_ of her fears and insecurities with, who put up with her incessant need for facts and her inability to lie with infinite patience and well-timed humor. Jane was the only one who took the time to reassure her and support her when Maura's shortcomings and self-doubt tripped her up. Her Jane, who had fiercely defended Maura through all of her parents' painful dramas, including getting right up in the face of the most dangerous man in the Irish mob and practically claiming Maura as her own.

This was her beloved Jane, who had rescued her from the quiet, clinical, emotionally distant existence she led, and had given her a warm and affectionate surrogate mother, and protective goofy surrogate brothers; an entire family of cacophonous compassionate Italian spirits that filled her immaculate home to the brim with messy, complicated, beautiful, vibrant life.

This was her treasured Jane, whose solid arms she had fallen into countless times, seeking comfort, seeking salvation; needing to anchor herself in the strong and steady heartbeat, burying her nose in the scent of lavender and myrrh, and listening to the distinctive husk that could speak of nothing and yet somehow always managed to say everything that she needed to hear.

Jane is the only person who chose her first, who _continues_ to choose to put Maura _first_, every time, in every situation. The only one who she trusts her life to without a second thought, and the ONLY person who consistently proves to her, day after day for the past five years, that she is valued, and desired and needed, and so very loved for being exactly who she is.

That the quirky doctor loved the brash detective was common knowledge in the precinct and fairly obvious to anyone who came across them on or off the job. The recognition that she was _in_ love with Jane, and probably had been for quite some time should have fazed her, but it didn't. If she were to examine all of the evidence, it would show conclusively that Maura had given her heart over to Jane a while ago, though how deeply Jane felt about her, how deeply she _could_ feel, was still a mystery, and the one conversation that she hadn't dared to initiate with the detective, lest it damage their friendship.

It was not these thoughts which petrified her. It was the knowledge that Jane had become so deeply ingrained to the M.E.'s life, so necessary to her daily existence that without her presence Maura doubted she could even breathe properly, never mind continue to function with any degree of normalcy.

She and Jane had become so intertwined, so inseparable in their shared dimensions, so integral to each other's well-being that she knew the absence of one would have devastating consequences on the one left behind. There were too many intersecting lines, too many vectors between them for there not to be an irrevocable change in the constant of all of their lives with the deletion of Jane's matrix from the equation. The doctor blinked, hot tears coursing down silently, and shuddered a breath. "Please don't leave me Jane," she whispered, shaking her head bleakly. "Not like this. Oh God, not like this."

Her phone bleeped finally, bringing her back to the urgency of the moment. Maura clamped down on the terror and tried to rein her focus back, planning her next few actions with clinical detachment, allowing the what-ifs to be compartmentalized into different parts of her as her brain tried to analyze the situation.

But the only thing her heart could process was that her best friend… an amazingly selfless woman who had shared friends, family and everything else in her life with a lonely, socially awkward doctor… this cranky, intuitive, protective, overly sarcastic and deeply sensitive person… her _favorite_ _person_, had just willingly and blindly jumped over 50 feet down into the dark, murky depths of Boston harbor, and had not resurfaced in well over 3 minutes.

The doctor hit the number to call in to BPD, already forming orders to bark to dispatch, even as she began to seriously plead with a God she never believed in before now for a small but extremely important miracle… because somewhere down below, Jane Rizzoli's breath was slipping away, and there wasn't a damn thing Maura Isles could do to save her, save them.

The medical examiner in her was excruciatingly aware of the statistical odds given the situation and was prepared to respond in the most professional manner possible. But the rest of Maura was beginning to drown in her own way, absolutely terrified that she had just witnessed the accidental death of her beloved detective, a woman that all of Boston thought was unsinkable.

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**AN: Thanks for reading. I know this scene is light on dialogue but that will change next chapter. Feel free to leave me some feedback regarding your thoughts, what you'd like to see, how you're feeling about these moments in the lives of this dynamic duo. The majority of scenes in the story arc are already planned out (or half written) but I'm happy to address something if y'all think it's needed. I would very much like some active reader feedback on this one. I'd like to challenge myself with a goal of one update every week or two, until the story resolves itself, and/or until the rest of season 5 begins to air, which looks like February ish. Stick around; it's going to be an interesting ride, though it'll be a while before we find out what happened to Jane. ~IV**


	2. Chapter 2

**The Null Space**

**By IncendioVerum**

**Chapter 2**

**AN: Thank you for the views and reviews, I hoped y'all would find this story interesting enough to want more. I thought I would have had time to post sooner but life got away from me a bit. New job (which is an awesome thing, but a big transition all the same) took priority. Now that I'm settling in, I'm hoping to commit more time to the story.**

**To the guest reviewer who wanted me to clarify if this was a main character death story, I'm the kind of writer that would have warned folks in the first chapter and the summary if that was going to happen. It's not. No characters that you recognize in the show will be offed permanently. Frost has already passed, (R.I.P. Lee/Barry) but there may be a flashback or two that includes him. Any original characters are fair game though k? That said, there's a lot of powerful emotion in not knowing what's become of a loved one, especially when the pieces don't all make sense, and I wanted to explore and honor that with this fic.**

**Disclaimers etc.: See chapter 1. Rating T for this chapter.**

**R&amp;I R&amp;I R&amp;I R&amp;I R&amp;I R&amp;I R&amp;I R&amp;I R&amp;I R&amp;I R&amp;I R&amp;I**

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...

**Chapter 2: In which Maura ponders the inevitability of time**

...

**Boston Harbor, 8:45 pm**

...

Maura was ever so thankful to hear the dispatcher's voice connect almost immediately.

_"_This is Doctor Isles, Chief Medical Examiner; I'm on the Narrows Bridge. We have an officer down, repeat officer down."

_Three minutes, forty seconds_.

The M.E. leaned over the railing as much as she dared trying vainly to see in the darkness.

_This can't be happening. She was right here. RIGHT. HERE._

"_Yes, _Victor eight two five, Detective Jane Rizzoli, in pursuit of a suspect making a suicidal gesture, Prosecutor Paul Wescourt . She f- they both fell from the Narrows Bridge on Moon Island and they haven't surfaced!"

Her ears continued to strain to hear any sign of movement below as she sprinted to the other side of the bridge to check the northern side. A blink as Maura realized that time was relentlessly ticking down on her best friend and the despondent district attorney and that she could do next to nothing to help them where she was.

"I need EMT's and officers on site, now!" She said as she jerked around and made a beeline for the prosecutor's vehicle to turn its blinkers and lights on, to mark the spot where they were standing. Maura dashed towards Jane's cruiser and threw herself in the driver's seat. The Crown Vic's tires squealed as she reversed and backtracked off the bridge, forcing the car down the embankment on the south side, closest to the area they landed on.

"Contact Harbor Patrol, we have two people in the water. Get a Rescue Team here with dive equipment STAT." The panicked doctor pushed the cruiser over the curb and drove it straight up to the waterline, punching the high beams on. "I need you to notify Sargent Detective Korsak in Homicide and Officer Frankie Rizzoli from Vice." She flipped the switches to start up the red and blue rack lights, and pointed the search light on the driver side dash to focus on the bridge supports closest to the point of impact.

_Ten minutes, thirty four seconds._

As she opened the door she could hear the distinct whine of a siren echo over the water, steadily growing stronger as she heard her brothers in blue respond to the call for help over the radio. The cruiser's high beams illuminated the water somewhat, but it was still quite dark and shadowy underneath the bridge, Maura could barely make out some of the supporting structures.

_They're coming Jane. I'll make the whole damn department come running if I have to, just hang on._

The M.E. grabbed the police radio's mic and desperately searched for the right button to change it to broadcast mode. Her voice suddenly boomed across the water, even as the first of three black and white's shot over the bridge and began to make their way to her. "Jane, if you can hear me, help is coming! Find something to hold onto if you can, and stay where you are, we'll find you!"

She popped the trunk and hurried around back, grabbing a neon yellow safety vest, a heavy duty flashlight and…she blinked. Jane's bright yellow mud boots. Maura's face crumpled for the briefest moment before she snatched them up and tore off her shoes.

Uniforms began running up to her for the situation. She took a breath, ruthlessly clamped down on her internal panic, and became Doctor Isles, urgently instructing them to begin searching the shoreline and to get all lights on the areas around the bridge. The embankment was soon ablaze with blue and red, white flashlights bobbing back and forth as police officers and Fire and Rescue walked the shoreline and the length of the bridge, calling for the detective and the prosecutor.

_Seventeen minutes, twenty one seconds._

Maura was almost knee deep in the dark water; slowly navigating her way around some rocks, scanning each area systematically with her flashlight and calling out for Jane when she suddenly heard her name echoing along the jetty. Her heart jumped violently in her chest before her brain finished processing the sound of the voice, so close to Jane's but too deep in pitch. _Frankie_.

"I'm here," she shouted, reluctantly turning back to the embankment where she could make out a male Rizzoli shaped form pacing frantically in front of one of the cruisers, being attended to by another plain clothed officer. She noted the two ambulances standing by; the EMT's having joined the search a few moments after she had briefed them about the possible casualties. As she approached, Frankie recognized her and hurried over, gripping on to her shoulders to catch her when she slipped on the moist ground.

"Maura, what happened, where's Janie?" His brown eyes, so familiar yet so scared, searched hers and her professional façade began to crack.

"I don't know, Frankie. We were up there," she said shakily, pointing up to the prosecutor's vehicle, still parked halfway across the bridge. "Jane thought the D.A. was suicidal, he left a farewell voicemail for his wife earlier; we pinpointed the background sounds in the call and traced him here, that's his car. When we found him she went over the side of the railing to try to talk him down, but she told me to stay back." She ran frustrated fingers through her wind swept hair. "I shouldn't have listened, I should have been closer!" She lamented.

Frankie looked incensed. "Did he hurt her? Toss her over?"

"No," She shook her head. "No, I don't think so. I'm not sure. I was too far back to hear their conversation clearly. They were talking for a few minutes. I heard a splash, saw Jane's head go down, then another splash. I ran to the railing and yelled for her, but she didn't come back up. They haven't…" she stopped, afraid to admit the whole truth for fear of it becoming a reality. "Frankie it's been too long... we have to find them!"

He nodded and grabbed the side of her head in reaction to her growing panic. "Okay! Okay… It'll be okay." He said bracingly, trying to convince them both. "She's tough and she can swim real good; Ma made us all take lessons when we were younger." He guided her into an intense brotherly hug, wrapping his arms around the petite M.E. as only a Rizzoli could. Maura nearly wept in relief from the familiar support. "This is Jane we're talkin' about; she's got more lives than a cat. We'll find her." She clung to him for a long moment, nodding against his thick shoulder as they both sniffled. "We just gotta have faith that she made it an she's waitin' for us to help her out."

The scientist in her couldn't stop calculating the various mortal probabilities of the situation, but Maura's heart cleaved to the idea of having hope, of having faith in Jane. If she had ever believed in anything supernatural up until now, she believed in Jane's ethereal power to overcome all of those statistics, with all that life had thrown at them. Surely she would come through this trial and tribulation too; soaked and cranky, bruised but with a beaming smile at beating the odds once again, wouldn't she?

Maura wiped her eyes quickly and exhaled, pushing away the sense of foreboding that something was somehow different this time. "I hope you're right Frankie. God, I hope she's alright."

They both anxiously glanced up to the bridge and Maura could feel the Italian gulp. "That's a long drop though. Jesus, Janie. What the hell were you thinkin'?" He murmured, half to himself.

Headlights illuminated them both for a moment as an unmarked cruiser pulled up sharply on scene, followed by a much larger police utility vehicle towing a small powerboat.

"Doctor Isles?" The gruff voice of Lieutenant Cavanaugh carried sharply through the night air as he jumped out of the car and approached them, followed closely by a very grim Detective Korsak and Nina Holliday, the diminutive BRIC tech on duty for the evening.

Frankie stepped away, and slid the flashlight out of her hand. "Here gimme this, I'm gonna start looking. Do what you gotta do to help Janie," he said quietly, squeezing her hand, "Call me if you hear anything." She squeezed back and looked up, taking some strength from the similar features on his face that reminded her so much of that confident presence that up until now had not left her side.

_Twenty six minutes, three seconds._

She met the incoming group and recounted the situation. Once Korsak heard the details he excused himself quickly with a stricken look on his face and immediately took charge of the officers on the waterfront, barking orders and heading over to assist Harbor Patrol's effort to launch their smallcraft.

"Tell them to get a diver ready to go immediately," Maura yelled after him. "Have them start exploring near the central support structure in the middle of the channel, that's where they came down."

He nodded brusquely. "On it." He replied, heaving himself up somewhat adroitly onto the bow of the boat as it slid off the trailer into the water. Maura watched him grab the senior patrol officer and converse animatedly as the boat's motors came to life with a growl.

Cavanaugh got her attention again. "Doctor Isles, I'll pull all available units, and get some officers on the far side of the bridge, so they can staht seachin' the waterfront on the island. What are we lookin' at here, you think Rizzoli could'a been pulled out into the bay?"

The M.E. shook her head, exasperated. "The outgoing tide didn't seem to be that strong initially. This area of the harbor isn't known for being terribly deep, but there have been cases of rip currents that are indeed more powerful that could be difficult to circumnavigate, even for an experienced swimmer. In addition, the bridge is several hundred meters long and most of the waterway around it is not well lit. It's entirely possible they drifted further out without anybody seeing them."

They walked closer to the water, scanning the activity. They watched the harbor patrol boat leave the jetty and make its way cautiously towards the middle of the bridge, search lights scanning the waters in front, Korsak on the bow with his own flashlight out, calling repeatedly for Jane. Another pair of officers had commandeered a nearby dinghy and were rowing out from shore. A dark solid form that Maura surmised was Frankie splashed up to them and flung himself into the rowboat before it got too far.

_Thirty five minutes, fifty seconds._

Maura held her breath in vain every time someone came jogging up to the lieutenant to check in and give an updated report. Every time there was no word, no sign of them yet. Eventually the M.E. began to pace, absently twisting her ring incessantly. "With searchers on both sides and walking the bridge itself we should have spotted them by now if they were able to swim towards shore or one of the supports. Unless…" She paused, and the lieutenant noted the agonized flinch that crossed her face.

"Unless what, Doctor Isles." He pressed, knowing he was not going to like the next words that came out of the distressed medical examiner's mouth.

She took a breath to steady herself. "Unless they became disoriented in the dark or tried to come up underneath a part of the piers or the structural framework of the bridge that doesn't have access to the surface. Or if they became entangled in some sort of debris underneath the water line." She swallowed back a small sob and continued. "Which is why I needed a diver in the water as soon as possible. Because if they haven't surfaced by now somewhere in the immediate vicinity, that means they can't."

He looked at her then, seeing her clinical detachment give way to the undercurrent of despair and dread that lay beneath, as she told him without words what a very likely conclusion to the evening could be.

The lieutenant grasped her forearm gently. "You and I both know she's a fighter. That woman has more guts, more willpower than any other cop on the force. If there's a way to hang on and stay alive, Rizzoli will find it. Now, every available cop we have is coming on scene. I'm having them search along the waterfront behind us and the nearby docks. Maybe they already made it to shore but can't contact us."

He pointed across to the south where a small flurry of activity was taking place, emergency lights flashing in the darkness. "Fire and Rescue already has a second team stationed on the other side of the inlet, they're gonna staht in from that end and work their way over to us. I'll tell the hahbor patrol to get more boats on the water searchin' the bay. Coast Guard's also been notified. We've got some powerful stadium lights we can get down here. Maybe if we can see more that'll help." He turned to one of his Sergeants and bellowed out a bevy of instructions, sending men scattering in all directions.

The M.E. nodded as he turned back to her. "Thank you." She blinked and turned inward for a moment.

The lieutenant frowned. "Maura?" He questioned.

"See more…" she murmured distantly. "We need to be able to see them. Lieutenant, is there an infrared scanner onboard the patrol boat?"

"I don't think so," he replied. "Just sonar. But there's a thermal imaging IF system in the department owned helicopter."

Maura stared intently at him. "How fast can we get it here?"

"It's parked at Logan. Twenty minutes, tops, if we can track down a pilot on standby. Problem is, we're so close to the airport they may not let the choppah fly over this area because of the flight paths." They both looked over to the next landmass less than a mile to the north of them, where Logan international airport was located; a large, glowing and busy center of activity in an otherwise dark pocket of the harbor.

"We have to try." She pleaded. "Have them make low level passes as best they can. We may be able to locate them that way, especially if they're stuck in the framework or floating out somewhere in the harbor. And see if SWAT can bring us some night-vision goggles. That will help."

"You got it." He agreed, taking a few steps away and pulling out his phone.

"Sean." She stopped him with a pained grimace. "Someone needs to inform Angela."

He blanched but dipped his head in acknowledgement. "My team, my responsibility. I'll handle it." He said gruffly, but Maura caught the deep regret that passed through his features before he brought the phone back to his ear and walked off, towards the huddle of police officers and fire fighters creating a staging area by the vehicles where she could see both Chief Richards and the Commissioner had joined the scene to offer assistance.

_Everyone's here for you, Jane; give us something, show us where you are, _she pled. Maura gazed back at the dark inlet, eyes searching in vain for some small sign that Jane and the prosecutor were nearby.

_Forty two minutes, eight seconds._

"Doctor Isles!" Nina waved her over to the back of Jane's cruiser, where the BRIC tech's tablet had been laid out on the trunk. "I brought up the topography of the area, and the tidal patterns for this time of the year. I think I can extrapolate the data and make some predictions as to where they might have been carried if they got caught in the outgoing currents."

Maura took one more strained glance at the scene, her eyes falling to the approximate point of impact as she sent another plea out to the universe for mercy._ Please be alive. Please keep swimming. Please come back to me Jane._

The M.E. slid an unsteady hand across her face, glanced at her watch for the hundredth time, and tried desperately to focus on the glowing tablet. "Show me."

_Forty five minutes, seven seconds. Eight seconds. Nine seconds…_

_..._

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**End of Chapter 2**

**AN: Thoughts? Lots of action, hopefully I remembered most of the detail correctly.  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Null Space**

**By IncendioVerum**

**Chapter 3**

**AN: Soo behind. But hey, tis life. Fantastic resolution to the cannon ep, and I appreciate certain elements / moments of the cannon storyline that were given to us over the course of the episode. **

**(Spoilers for S5 Ep 13-14 incoming – you have been warned.) I haven't quite gotten over the look that Jane gives to Maura's retreating figure after she says "I've never been so glad to see you." And Maura's face saying (I can't even-) So much Boom. Also, adventures in ravioli making bring people together in unexpected ways.  
**

**I'm hoping that my version of the events is an interesting twist of the original storyline; b/c I always thought that there might be another answer other than the jealous spouse trope. I fully intend to take this to its natural completion, regardless of cannon. So, that said, it's about to get hard. And I need you to trust me. Trigger warning for uhm, underwater things. And sad things. Also some warning for language. **

**Disclaimer: See Chapter 1 Rating: T/M**

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**Chapter 3: In which Maura loses her religion**

**. . . **

10:23 pm.

The chopper roared over the police cars on its way to make another low level pass towards Moon Island, this time taking a more southerly route, searchlight crisscrossing the sea below it, the on-board IF scanner unfortunately silent for the most part. Nearly two hours into the search hadn't seen much of a result, either from the ground based search teams, harbor patrol, or the coastguard… aside from a smattering of floating debris, inconsequential trash, and two sets of teenagers on a party boat who were very surprised by an impromptu visit from harbor patrol for their drunken night swim which had been caught by the heat scanner on the department helicopter halfway out into the bay. It was both maddening and frightening to the M.E. _How could they just disappear? We should have found something by now. Come ON Jane_.

Maura's anxiety level was approaching Alpha Centauri at this point, but there was no time to break down and 'have a moment' as Jane would say. Whenever her lachrymal gland would decide to overproduce, she reached deep into herself for the strength that she knew came from her faith in Jane and held onto it with every fiber of her being, allowing it to warm her, bolster her against the inevitable looks of pity, concern, increasing urgency on her fellow officer's faces as they searched fruitlessly for one of their own, for _her_ own.

The pathologist turned from her most recent conversation with Lieutenant Cavanaugh and headed towards the back of Jane's cruiser, where Nina was coolly manipulating the available data on tidal patterns, and making an up-to-the-moment graphical representation of the search. As she walked up, the BRIC tech briefly scanned her features, presumably looking for any sign of progress. Finding none on the M.E.'s elegantly professional visage, Nina could only nod in deference and angled her body so that the doctor could have the best view of the tablet's screen.

"Here's the latest." she said, bringing up a topographical map of Boston harbor, overlaid with several different colors stretching out in patterns overlapping the majority of the area, touching upon the myriad of small islands and tributaries that bled out into the harbor proper within four square miles of the drop point. "Harbor patrol is in blue, north and south inlet search teams are in orange, coast guard is in red, and the BPD helicopter is in green. There's another team working their way down the river, upstream from here, but with an outgoing tide, it seems unlikely that-"

The M.E. nodded. "- that they would have drifted that way, unless they were picked up by a smallcraft heading into the Neponset river."

Nina nodded. "-And there's been no recent activity that way, at least according to the bridge master working the Fallstaff bridge. No major action on the Charles either, but that's way north of us, too far for them to drift to the mouth in the past two hours."

Maura shook her head. "With an outgoing tide, I highly doubt Detective Rizzoli would have chosen that direction, even if she were disoriented." _She's lived here all her life; she knows the ebbs and flows of the local waters even if she wasn't an avid mariner. She'd have realized where the tide was pulling her, would have looked for land, a buoy, a support to grab onto...why haven't we found you._

The M.E. took a moment to scan Nina's screen, and then touched on three areas. "Here, here, and here. These are the most likely points of drift. Let's get the teams focused on these points. Even if we were to extrapolate over time, which I suggest you do, after this, the general direction of flow would still be the same given the past data."

. . .

* * *

. . .

11:17 pm

A small commotion in the distance drew the medical examiner's attention from her conversation with Captain Corday, the coast guard liaison who had come ashore to confer with them and coordinate the search that had expanded further out into the harbor.

Cavanaugh walked briskly up to her and held out a radio scanner. "It's Korsak; he wants to talk to you. Says they found something, maybe."

Maura's heart leapt in her chest, and her eyes searched his expression for any hint of what was to come. The Irishman looked concerned, but kept his feelings behind an iron mask of command. "Here," he said, thrusting the scanner into her hands.

"This is Dr. Isles, go ahead." She said, hoping her voice carried authoritatively over the com device.

On board the harbor patrol scarab, Korsak checked the squelch of the CB radio. The static swept away part of the responder's words, but Vince could swear that he heard The M.E. responding.

"Maura?"

"It's me Vince. What did you find?"

"We got something in the water. Mazzo's fishing it out now."

"What is it? A body?"

"No. Shoes. Well, one shoe. Brown wingtip. Wait, there's the other one."

"Bring them in, I'll have to test them, or get the crime lab to pull video from the station to initiate a match search. I didn't have any personal contact with the prosecutor today, and can't provide any definitive identification on his footwear."

"Okay, I'll-, Hey, over there, what's that!" he shouted over to the other occupants of the boat. He had seen another object floating in the darkness, illuminated by the boats searchlight. He had them come back around and head towards the debris that had caught his eye.

"Oh Christ," he groaned, once he realized that it was some type of clothing.

Vince hesitated, as one of the harbor patrol officers hung over the bow of the boat with a long net, reaching out to snag what looked like some type of clothing, floating forlornly in the dark. Korsak gulped as his indigestion came back full force once he realized what it could be. He sucked in a breath.

"Maura... I gotta ask you something I really don't wanna ask you."

The M.E.'s head quirked. "Of course, Vince. Anything."

"What was she wearing when you two went after Wescourt?"

Maura blinked and responded automatically to the request for information, despite the dread that had flared in her intestines. "Her work suit, she hadn't changed from earlier."

Mazzo carefully walked back from the bow and handed over his net. Korsak grabbed a set of gloves and began to wrestle the drenched cloth free.

"Was she wearing her jacket when she went over?"

"Yes, Vince... what –"

"Was it grey, a light grey, like- _oh,_ _shit_…"

"What Vince! Tell me what's happening!" The urgency in her voice echoed eerily off the water.

He paused. "We found it. I think. It's... it's pretty torn up. I'll have them get it to you."

"How bad is it?"

He looked at her tiny form across the channel. "It's bad."

Maura's hand crept up to her mouth, as if she could physically stop herself from talking. But she had to ask.

"No other sign?"

His silence over the com spoke volumes.

. . .

* * *

. . .

11:42 pm

It didn't take long for the second patrol skiff to come alongside the larger boat, and a package was somberly handed over. The runabout zipped back to shore, and two officers jumped out and headed for the illuminated staging area. Dr. Isles hurried forward and put her hand out to receive the wet evidence bag, her eyes searching the officer's face. He handed over the bag with care, but wouldn't meet her eyes. The resulting sense of foreboding made her heart seize, as she began to actually believe that this night was going to end very differently than any other evening in recent memory.

She opened the bag with slightly trembling fingers, pulling out a sodden heap of dirty, briny, bloodied cloth. Her eyes grew wide with fear as she spread out the remains of the garment onto the makeshift folding table in front of her. _Oh no._ Untangled, it resolved itself into a grey ladies suit jacket. Jane's suit jacket… or what was left of it. Half of it was missing, split right down the middle, the back piece shredded. _Oh God, Jane. _

Cavanaugh approached the table quietly, the other officers and first responders giving the M.E. a respectful distance. "Is it hers?" he asked, as gently as he could.

Tears began silently winding down the planes of the beautiful doctor's face, as she reached out and affectionately ran her hand down the lapel, on the side that had always had a slight kink to it, one that Jane would never let her iron out.

He stared at the jacket, not able to handle watching the realization slowly growing on the M.E.'s face at the significance of the evidence. Without a word, she slid one gloved hand into the breast pocket, pulled out Jane's business cards, and showed him, not even needing to look at them to know what they were.

The commissioner walked over and took in her response. "Can you give us your opinion Doctor, on what may have happened?"

Maura was having trouble forming sentences at the moment, in her numbed state of shock, but felt compelled to answer.

"G-given the circumstances, I...I can theorize that J...Detective Rizzoli's jacket came into contact with a long sharply bladed instrument. Considering the immediate location, the most likely implement would be a… propeller of some type. That would explain the systematic shredding of this portion here."

He nodded soberly. "If Rizzoli was wearing this when, uh, that happened, do you think she would have been able to survive being...what, run over by a boat of some sort?" he hazarded.

"Oh my God." The grizzled lieutenant groaned quietly and stepped away, running his hands over his face.

Maura's eyes slammed shut as her mind, unbidden, conjured up a scenario involving a winded Jane, or perhaps an unconscious one, floating in the dark water, not seen by a passing smallcraft, being pulled underneath the hull and through the prop before she could swim free of it. It was the most logical conclusion to explain the evidence. And it was also the conclusion she had desperately prayed not to have to make tonight. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and answered him.

"Unlikely." She breathed tightly. "If she had been wearing this at the time of impact, the most likely scenarios would involve partial or complete severing of the spinal column anywhere between T6 to L4. Instant paraplegia, and the resulting intake of water to the lungs due to the shock would have meant asphyxiation within minutes."

Suddenly she couldn't help herself. Protocol be damned. She picked up the jacket and brought it close to her nose, inhaling what was left of Jane's distinctive scent, a heady mix of lavender and myrrh that had always brought her comfort, offered protection, offered grace. But an agonizing sense of despair flooded her heart when the scent of blood permeated her nostrils.

_Blood. Jane's blood. I'm holding Jane's bloody jacket._ _Which she isn't going to ever wear again. _ The analytical side of her abruptly let go, and the emotional part that was left finally opened up to the horror of what she had just said about her best friend. Suddenly, the weight of the loss hit her. The realization that Jane wasn't coming back this time; that her beautiful, battered, lifeless body was somewhere at the bottom of the harbor, slowly being swept out to sea. Maura took one small step and dropped to her knees, hard, in the sand, and buried her face in the collar of the jacket with an uncontrollable sob, surrounding herself with the last traces of Jane's scent which was already dissipating. Not caring that her grief was on display for all to see. Not caring about anything other than the fact that she had actually lost the one person who she loved most in this world. The best thing that had ever happened to her in her entire life was gone. _Jane's… gone_.

Yelling broke through her tortured consciousness eventually and she blinked open haunted eyes to see Frankie being held back by three other officers down by the waterline. He had seen her fall to her knees with the jacket, and he knew something was wrong. He had taken one look at her face and screamed with anguish. He shoved off the hold and staggered up to her, dropping to his knees, his legs suddenly losing their strength. He glanced at the grey burden in her hands, and blanched in horror. His brown eyes searched hers urgently, begging her to deny her actions even as his mouth begged silently for the truth.

Her tears became like two small rivulets, cascading down her pale face, but her throat had closed in on itself, she could no longer even speak in her grief. The evidence of Jane's final moments had literally robbed her of breath. It was all she could do to slowly shake her head back and forth, until a ragged sob left her chest painfully, starting a cascade of uncontrollable weeping as Maura and Frankie fell into each other, Jane's destroyed jacket held between them as they wept.

They spoke no words, but the sound of their heartbroken cries was carried on the wind to everyone in the immediate vicinity. All movement stopped, except for hands that removed duty caps in respect, and several familiar officers who slowly came around the duo, and took a knee near them, placing hands on them in solidarity and support. Jane's disciples, her brothers and sisters in blue. But it was a cold comfort to Maura's broken spirit.

. . .

* * *

. . .

8:45 pm, under the Narrows Bridge.

_The force as she hit nearly stunned her, thrumming through her feet first. With a loud rushing, she was abruptly immersed in cool darkness. '__**Fuck. That was stupid**__.' After a moment to orient herself, Jane opened her eyes carefully. The salty water stung, but she was able to make out murky shapes nearby, including a human shape moving jerkily around, about six feet below her. Thankful for the hours of swim lessons at the Y she and her brothers had growing up, she got her limbs moving in the right order and managed to get pointed in the right direction to swim after the distraught prosecutor. _

'_**I'm never gonna hear the end of this, I probably just gave Maura a flipping heart attack,**__' she thought as she dove down lower. '__**Hang on Paul, I'll get ya.'**__ She was suddenly pulled sideways by an unexpected and very strong current. '__**What the f- oof!'**__ She nearly let out her breath in surprise, and began to respond, strenuously fighting the current which had snatched her up and was moving them away from the surface. __**'Maur', gonna need some help here, please call it in honey,'**__ She glanced up for a moment, but in the dark, she couldn't even see the lights from the bridge clearly anymore. '__**This was a really bad idea. Really. Bad. Idea.**__'_

_She continued to fight the downward current that was taking her and Paul and towards a dark set of huge underwater pipes under one of the bridge supports. A strange low pitched machine sound caught Jane's attention as she tried to move her body in a different direction._

'_**Shit, this is gonna go bad fast,**__' Jane thought, now panicked at her inability to fight the force of water around her. Shapes flashed around the larger opening, and Jane realized they were turbines of some sort. '__**Oh my God. That is NOT okay!**__' Within seconds they were drawn close enough to be sucked into the intake turbines causing the massive current flow._

_The detective watched, horrified, as Paul was swallowed up whole by the main feeder pipe, and she grabbed onto a steel girder to try to stop her body from following him. She swung around and choked in pain as her back made contact with one of the intake fan blades, its protective grating degraded to the point where the sharp metal had been partially exposed. The fan blade shredded right through her suit jacket and sliced into the flesh of her back several times before the motor caught on her jacket and twisted it, pulling her towards the center of the turbine. Jane freaked out and pulled in the opposite direction with all her might, desperately railing against the trap. __**'Dammit. Maura's gonna kill me, if this thing doesn't finish me off.' **__The Italian brought her legs up and pushed, not caring that the lack of oxygen was making spots dance before her eyes with the exertion. _

_As fear began to take over her nervous system, fiery thoughts and memories swam through the detective's head. The petite M.E. in scrubs smiling at her over a body, Sunday dinners with her family, the feel of Joe Friday's fur beneath her fingers, Maura's perfume hanging in the air, on the sheets, the last time she crashed at the Doctor's home. Giggling and yelling with her brothers as they watched the game, Maura telling her she lost the baby, and looking devastated. Being so close to telling the Doctor that Jane wanted… more, though she wasn't exactly sure what MORE actually meant but... chickening out every time, afraid that she was being selfish when Maura seemed to be doing so well with Jack….. A vision of a body bag unzipped revealing Jane's shredded face and Maura's horrified scream suddenly flew through her oxygen starved mind, and she reacted. _

'_**No. No, HELL no, I am NOT going down as chopped up fish bait for Maura to have to put back together like a damn jigsaw puzzle. COME ON you bastard, lemme go!'**__ She flexed and turned, her back burning, looking to get a better angle to resist. She felt her jacket began to rip up the back seam and she tried to shrug out of one side while hanging on to the girder for dear life._

_She began to feel her lungs struggling not to breathe. Suddenly the seam ripped through, and the jacket split in half, one part swallowed by the turbine, the other half came off with Jane, who was propelled by her own force clear of the turbine and directly into the maw of the intake pipe, the remains of her jacket slipping off in the vain struggle._

_Jane's last conscious thoughts as her body was swallowed up into the overly large pipe rested on her family, who she knew would be shattered, and Maura... __**'Maura, I'm so sorry honey, I should have told you.'**__ Jane's vision began to darken as she finally lost her control of her lungs._

'_**God, I can't- I can't hold…Help me please! Please-'**__ abruptly her abdomen contracted and she let go of her held breath, convulsively inhaling the salt water as the last vestige of light was extinguished from her vision. The echoes of rushing water flooded her ears as she began to lose consciousness. __**'Maura…forgive me.'**__ And Jane surrendered to her fate, sending a last desperate prayer for mercy out to her God as she felt her heart begin to spasm._

_. . ._

* * *

**AN: Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. ;)**

**R&amp;I**

**R&amp;IR&amp;IR&amp;I**


End file.
